The 2006 Duhart-Milon has been uncorked....

[JimHow]

Up on the hill,
People never stare,
They just dont care,
Chinese music under banyan trees
Here at the dude ranch
Above the sea,

Aja,
When all my dime dancin' is through
I run to you


Okay, "Chateau Lafite's 2006 Duhart-Milon" has been uncorked....

Is this the real deal?

Or is it another Carruades?

We shall see.... We shall see....

[JimHow]

I'm not going to decant this, I want to experience this wine from its first painful, tart sips on through the whoopie pie dessert.

What do you figure this wine is worth out there on the market... A grand? Two grand?

Do I have any buyers? I have three more bottles of the '06 and a whole case of the 2005, plus a 6L of the 2002....

I'll sell the whole lot for a quarter miiiiillion dollars....

[Gerry M.]

Please tell me this Duhart and not Carruades!

[JimHow]

Ha ha yes it is Duhart, Gerry, but did Duhart change their label to a lighter color in the past couple years?
I think they did....

Initial sips are revealing significant oak but I'm not too concerned about it, I expect it will dissipate....

[JimHow]

Tannic and very oaky but becoming impressive with air....

[JimHow]

Lafite deep ruby colar and cedar on the nose....

This ain't no Carruades de Lafite, baby....

[JimHow]

The way I feel about this wine is... sad.

Maybe "melancholy" is the better word....

I'm sad because it is clearly a wine of quality.

You know, it pains me to say this, but...

This wine is "Chateau Lafite's Duhart Milon...."

It is not some Carruades scam.... it is truly a Medoc classified growth that screams out Lafite attention to detail....

Of course, I've been saying this for at least five years now.... By the way, you know, I don't want to brag or anything, but there have been certain wines out there... Lafite (not Latour)... Lynch Bages... Pontet-Canet... Duhart-Milon... others... that Yours Truly was touting long before they became so in vogue.... But anyway....

Well, okay, maybe not Lafite, but for a while there HWSRN thought Latour could do no wrong, myself I always thought it was Lafite that had that extra something, hey, at least the Hong Kong millionaires seem to agree with me....

Buy this wine. Buy it like the wind.

Buy it faster than you bought the 2003 Pontet-Canet....

Buy this wine from any vintage... if you can....

That overpowering oak I was speaking of earlier? Gone... Replaced now by cedar and pencil shavings.

Excellent finish on this wine.... Very delicious with the tenderloin from the grill. You get the sense that this wine extracted the best that the 2006 vintage had to offer from that plot of land....

[stefan]

YOU thought Lafite had something extra?!?! Lafite has been my favorite for 40 years.

stefan the Elder

[Nicklasss]

Probably a clear sky, high pressure, tonight in Maine...

I was not impressed by the 06 up to now, but did not had any Lafite, Lynch Bages, Pontet-Canet or Duhrt-Milon. But the 06 Smith Haut-Laffite was quite good, but really pricey here (80 $).

Nic

[JimHow]

What? You guys don't believe I discovered the greatness of Chateau Lafite Rothschild???

Wow.

[JimHow]

We have had a SPECTACULAR summer here in Maine, Nic.

I was watching all of the videos of the Obama family during their 48-hour visit to Bar harbor last weekend, they stopped at all my favorite places, including the places I went with you and M-C.

The president had one word to describe it:

"Spectacular."

[JimHow]

Let me take this little break in the action before I pair the 2006 Duhart-Milon with Le Pie de Whoopie to make a few housekeeping comments.

Haarruumph, clears his throat....

1. For anyone who is peeking in at the BWE v. Robert M. Parker, Jr., thread, be forewarned: I am about to be very mean to Mr. Parker. If this is something that bothers you, I strongly advise you to simply avoid reading that thread. Otherwise, you should consider yourself warned.

2. I have banned a BWEer, who is beloved by many on this site, for a period of 7 days. This follows a one-day ban I imposed on him earlier this week. This is only the third time I have banned a non-bot member of BWE in ten years, the first two being DavidL from England and Jerry from Texas. In both of those cases i had many compelling reasons to ban those individuals, and I am very comfortable with my decisions to do so. In this most recent situation, the circumstances are somewhat more tricky. It is my hope that this person will serve his seven day ban and will continue on as a productive member of BWE, subjecting himself completely to the benevolence of his Benevolent Dictator. Only time will tell whether he is willing to do this. If he is not willing to do this, there is a substantial likelihood that I will have to ban him permanently. I sincerely hope I do not have to do this. If I do, it will be an extremely unpopular decision by your most beloved and benevolent BD. But trust me when I say this: If the circumstances warrant it, I will ban him. I will ban him with the blink of an eye. When I was the mayor of a city in Maine, I had to lay-off seven firefighters in the middle of an economic crisis in the early-nineties-- a crisis much worse than even what we are dealing with right now-- after the firefighters union refused to make concessions. That lay-off decimated the lives of seven families. I lost sleep over that decision for weeks, but in the end I was certain that the city council and I did the right thing. Nobody on the council wanted to take the blame, so I accepted responsibility for the decision. There were many such tough decisions I had to make in politics. I laid off those firefighters because I felt I had no choice. That decision was a zillion times more difficult than ANY decisions I have even remotely had to make here on BWE. If the situation arises that I have to permanently ban this individual, it is my hope that individual BWEers will continue to participate on BWE. But if you choose not to, I will respect your decision and will wish you the best in the future, on whatever other sites you may end up. As you analyze these disputes that occur on BWE, I encourage you to keep in mind that, as BD, I receive many communications that do not appear here on our message board. I receive numerous emails and private messages from BWEers. Thus, when I comment that a particular BWEer is "temperamental", keep in mind that I am not always talking about things that have appeared just on the message board, but also via email, private messages, etc....

I have a couple other important issues, including the DavidG situation, that I will discuss in my next message.

[JimHow]

3. It appears that my good friend David Glasser has no longer been posting on BWE since I called him an "asshole" earlier this week. I have met David, I'm guessing, upwards of 20 times over the past ten years. I do not consider him an asshole. On the contrary, he is a great guy, as evidenced by the fact that I personally selected him to be the Number Two man on BWE. In other words, he is a heartbeat away from the benevolent dictatorship of Bordeaux Wine Enthusiasts. He is the Dick Cheney of BWE. Now, having said all that, even though I think he is a wonderful guy, I feel he was acting like an asshole there for a while towards me on this message board. I think that, for some reason, he got into his head that he had to be the foil of the BD, or, as blanquito put it so well, the "conscience" of the BD. I asked him nicely to stop, he persisted a little, no big deal, then I called him... the horror... an "asshole..." Now, if I wanted to be combative, I would say that you are all hypocrites... that if you all had to experience even one percent of the grief I get from BWEers on and off the message board, you temperamental, thin-skinned, squires-like schmucks would have jumped ship ten years ago.... But I'm not going to do that.... I'm going to be above calling ALL of you assholes. But, in the same vein as what I said about the banned BWEer in point 2 above, let's be VERY clear: I consider myself a VERY kind, generous, gentle person. I say things here on BWE designed to make people uncomfortable. It is my INTENTION to do that. I do that because I think I believe all this so-called wine criticism nonsense is total bullshit. That's just what I believe, if you believe differently, that's cool. Some people can deal with it, some can't. If you can't then... drumroll... leave.... Just... LEAVE! Go to another site. Whether Tom or David or "that chick Maureen" or anyone else out there who is pissed at me likes it or not, that's just the way it is going to be here on BWE. When I started BWE over ten years ago, I basically figured it would be a place for me-- a place where I would come and post my notes, to myself-- then I invited Ben, and Scott and Nic came on board, etc., and the rest is history.... So, my point is.... If ya wanna post here, I'm incredibly honored to have you here. If not, then just leave, and spare me the whining and bitching and thin-skinned self-importance.... I just don't have time to deal with it.... Trust me, if BWE in the end becomes that place I imagined on that Saturday morning ten years ago-- a place where I can just post my notes to myself in peace, trust me, compared to laying off seven firefighters, or slashing the school budget by five million, or keeping an innocent person out of jail, or saving a person's home from foreclosure... compared to those things... and I know this is tough for some self-imagined "wine experts" to hear this, in their self-importance.... this, ladies and gentlemen, is peanuts....

Which brings me to my fourth and final point....

[JimHow]

4. Just before I left for Chicago '10 this past March, I was getting substantial amounts of grief off-line from this BWEer who I banned recently for seven days: To the point where, at one point, I decided i was not going to go to Chicago. I mean, why deal with this? It's just not that important to me anymore. Why spend a couple thousand dollars to go someplace with people who are giving me a hard time, when I can go to the Caribbean or some such place on my limited semi-retirement vacation budget, with someone who treats me nice rather than gives me a hard time? What is wrong with this picture? I discussed this concern with Lisa and Howard in Chicago. I ended up going to Chicago, of course, because some 35 or so BWEers had made commitments to attend from around the country and, in some cases, from around the world, and Jon and Rick had done so much work on organizing things. And it ended up being, as usual, a spectacular weekend. Notwithstanding everything I said above, I think one of the remaining great things we have been able to preserve on BWE has been these very special annual conventions, and the other smaller gatherings we've organized during the rest of the year. After Chicago I was leaning towards a return to California for 2011-- a convention in San Francisco. I thought San Fransisco had potential for a memorable BWE weekend. I have to tell you that, at this point, i have no intention of participating in future BWE conventions. If someone else wants to start planning ahead for 2011, I encourage you to start doing that sooner rather than later....

[JimHow]

Sigh, in the end, this 2006 Duhart-Milon is very impressive.
Loads of sediment in the final two pours.
This is a qualty wine, again, you just really get the impression that there was impeccable wine-making going on here-- very strict selection, cropping, etc., etc.-- in other words-- sigh-- clearly a Lafite Rothschild effort.

The 2006s are all bought up, but I'll be looking for the 2007s, 2008s, and 2009s at the New Hampshire Liquore Store in the years ahead.

Rating: A very enthusiastic 93+ points for this quintessential, well-crafted Pauillac.

[robertgoulet]

purchased 3 bottles based on your rec. Abc has it here for $50.

[DavidG]

Glad you liked the Duhart-Milon, Jim. I may have to pick up a bottle to try.

But oh geez, how did I miss this?

3. It appears that my good friend David Glasser has no longer been posting on BWE since I called him an "asshole" earlier this week. I have met David, I'm guessing, upwards of 20 times over the past ten years. I do not consider him an asshole. On the contrary, he is a great guy, as evidenced by the fact that I personally selected him to be the Number Two man on BWE. In other words, he is a heartbeat away from the benevolent dictatorship of Bordeaux Wine Enthusiasts. He is the Dick Cheney of BWE.

Must've been while I was taking a break from BWE. We all need a break now and then. I was giving you grief and deserved it in return. Apologies all around. Compared to most real-life stuff, this is peanuts. But DICK CHENEY!?!? HOLY CRAP! All I can say is, if I'm Dick Cheney, what's that make you?

[JimHow]

LOL
I'd go with Nixon myself....
I can attain such greatness, and yet have such Greek flaws...
Nixon Agonistes... BD Agonistes....

I really liked the 2006 Duhart, I may pick up a few more mags from Sherry-Lehman.

New Hampshire is releasing their 2007 Bordeauxs this week, I'm looking forward to trying the Duhart and a few others from this reputedly less than great vintage, in the name of science....

[aimeedogdogdog]

David,

you are not alone. I missed this too. I am still clueless.

Jim,

May I suggest that you put all these stuff into some plots in your next few books? I think it might be good stuff for some dramas. And it would give those of us who missed and are still clueless something to catch up on what happened. With a full 10 years BWE history, there would be a lot of good material for a book or two.

Now please come to SF for the next BWE convention. If you don't want to, is it because you feel some of the old-timers left and just won't feel the same any more? Maybe it's a sign so you could spend more time with other BWEers, who might have interacted with you less in the past. Few things would last long and change is always good (but only when you see the beauty of it.) I think most importantly it's you who should enjoy life to the full. If you don't you owe yourself one.

Werner

[DavidG]

The '06 DH is going for around $60. I was hoping I'd see it for 1/2 or 2/3 that. Might have to try one anyway.

LOL
I'd go with Nixon myself....

Yeah but Cheney wasn't VP then. Hmm, Cheney to your W or Agnew to your Nixon...

[dstgolf]

That Duhart must be a potent hallucinogen because something certainly sent the BD off on a tangent that clearly few can understand by reading this thread. I could never see any longstanding animosity between David and Jim. After all who can you call an asshole and get away with it but a good friend! Now kiss and make up!!

Danny

[DavidG]

Done and done, Danny. There is no problem here.

[Blanquito]

I bought the 2005 Duhart for $42 as futures, 2-3 cases I think. A very good wine. That should cover me until the fine wine market collapses. So no more Duhart for me as I also have quite a bit of the 2003 and 2004. I did just order some 375s of the 2008 Pontet Canet-- it seems like a can't miss great wine.

I think it was the 2003 vintage where Duhart took it up another notch. Too bad the prices followed almost immediately.

[JimHow]

Ah this post is a month old... Ancient history on the internets....

My mags of 2006 Duhart delivered today from Sherry Lehman.

I will sell them for $10,000 apiece....